Artist’s contribution honours daughter, aids Nunavut kids

Children from Pond Inlet, Nunavut, play their fiddles atop an iceberg just outside their community in one of their first concerts in 2007. The fiddles were bought through a Lunenburg County association that provides music workshops and instruments to students in the community. Below, Fern Jordan designed and made this stained glass window to raise money for a Lunenburg County association that provides Inuit youth with the opportunity to learn music.

The 11-year-old would rescue anything from a dog to a frog, and spent hours writing stor­ies and poems that offered uncommon perception and a vibrant mind.

At 7:15 a.m. one Saturday morning, she was in the car with her good friend Susan, and Susan’s parents, Ron and Iris. An impaired driver smashed into them, killing all four.

Leanne and Susan were 11. Leanne was going to watch Susan in a Highland dance competition.

That was 24 years ago.

While Leanne’s mother, Fern Jordan, says her daughter was violently robbed of her dreams that morning, Jordan honours her by helping other children achieve their dreams through a charitable foundation she cre­ated, called the Leanne Palylyk Children’s Foundation.

Some of its beneficiaries include Medecins Sans Fronti­eres, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, youth emergency shelters, the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Tusarnaar­niq Sivumut Association — Music for the Future.

Jordan has gone a step fur­ther than donating money to the Lunenburg County music association. She is a stained glass artist and has created a glass panel to auction off at a benefit concert for the association in Lunenburg on Nov. 3.

“The image that I envisioned was of children dancing and playing their instruments un­der the aurora borealis," Jordan said.

When association founder Julie Lohnes showed her a photograph of Inuit children playing fiddles atop an iceberg in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Jord­an’s picture was almost com­plete.

“(It was) so incredible, to have my imagined vision right there before me," Jordan said.

Like her daughter, the glass she used for the aurora boreal­is is rare — the only one made in the Uroboros glass factory in Oregon. She has been sav­ing it since 2005 for just the right project.

“The other motifs in the panel are symbolic of Inuit myth and reality — the singing beluga, and the singing narwhal, and the rising sun."

Jordan said she also incor­porated personal symbols she likes to use that represent explosive light and the power of the universe.